Saturday, January 02, 2016

Roberts: APS shows who runs this state

So, Arizona Public Service has decided to flex its considerable muscle (again, that is) and reject a regulator’s order to disclose how much it spent to stack the Arizona Corporation Commission with friendly faces.

“Compelled disclosure about political contributions that APS or its affiliates may have made out of shareholder profits would go beyond what is required of all corporations under Arizona campaign finance laws, and would impinge on APS’s First Amendment rights,” APS/Pinnacle West CEO Don Brandt wrote, in a three paragraph blow-off to Commissioner Bob Burns.

Never mind that the Supreme Court justice who wrote the decision that allows APS to spend money on an independent political campaign actually contemplated that disclosure of such spending woujld occur.

Never mind the state Constitution, which says commissioners “shall have the power to inspect and investigate the property, books, papers, business, methods, and affairs of any corporation whose stock shall be offered for sale to the public, and of any public service corporation doing business within the state.”

Or state law, which says commissioners “may, at any time, inspect the accounts, books, papers and documents of any public service corporation.”

Brandt is thumbing his nose at the law because he knows no one in a position of authority will do anything about it.

AZCENTRAL

APS refuses request to disclose political contributions

Certainly not the five-member commission. Two of them, Doug Little and Tom Forese, are widely believed to have been elected with $3.2 million worth of secret help from APS. One, Bob Stump, has been fighting all year to keep secret the texts he was sending during last year’s campaign – texts that went to an APS official, a dark money group believed to have been funded by APS and to Forese, Little and their campaign manager, Alan Heywood.

That leaves the new guy, former House Speaker Andy Tobin, appointed to the Corporation Commission by Gov. Doug Ducey on Wednesday to fill Susan Bitter Smith’s seat after she resigned earlier this month. Tobin likely has no great love for APS, given its $10,000 in support last year for Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick over him, but would he risk running afoul of the governor? Not likely.

Then there is Burns – the only commissioner thus far willing to ask questions about whether APS secretly spent millions to in essence buy a couple of seats on the commission that regulates utilities. And it took him most of the year to even ask the question.

Absent Burns filing a lawsuit, I don’t see this toothless commission taking a bite out of APS for thumbing its nose at the law. And at you and me.

OK, so maybe Ducey will intervene? Not likely. APS parent Pinnacle West Capital Corp., spent at least $55,500 to get Ducey elected last year. That’s that we know of. Who knows how much of the $3 million in dark money spent to get Ducey elected might have come from APS/Pinnacle West? Coincidentially, I’m sure, Brandt was one of five people to serve on Ducey’s Inaugural Committee.

So how about Attorney General Mark Brnovich? Might he intervene in an effort to enforce the law? While I’d like to think he would, Brnovich enjoyed at least $450,000 worth of campaign support from Pinnacle West.

The Legislature? Oh, come on….

APS said no to opening its books not because it has the legal right to do so but because it has a political muscle to do so.

2:40 into the video “With our system, we use LTE, which is a common protocol that most of the telcos (cellular telephone companies) around the world use. So anyone with a smart phone anywhere in the world will be able to get Internet access. One of the key things we do is we partner with the local telco in every country.”

1:21 into the video: “Last year the team made a critical decision switching from a wireless router to an LTE antenna. We are just like a cell phone tower, but in the sky. And the same way their central office of the telco interacts with all their cell towers, they will interact with our balloons.”

5:23 into the video: “Over the last six months, Google has run tests with Vodaphone, Telstra and Telephonica, utilizing their networks to provide connectivity to customers who normally live with little or no Internet access.”

Signals are transmitted from the balloons directly to LTE-enabled devices. Web traffic that travels through the balloon network is ultimately relayed to our local telecommunications partners’ ground stations, where it connects to pre-existing Internet infrastructure.

“By the end of the year, Cassidy hopes to be able to provide a few days of continuous service in its tests. So far during trials in Australia, Chile, New Zealand, Brazil, and other countries, Google has succeeded only in providing intermittent access before the wind carries a balloon off. If it can overcome the remaining challenges, Cassidy is hoping to roll out the service more widely by the end of 2016 and is looking at underserved Internet markets such as Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia as the best places to start.”

“Google made a different kind of advance with Loon when it added the capability to send data using the LTE spectrum—making it possible for people to connect directly to the Internet with their mobile phones. (Loon’s original Wi-Fi connection required a base station and a special antenna.) Using LTE also helped Google boost the capacity of its connections. Recent Loon payloads are providing as much as 22 MB/sec to a ground antenna and 5 MB/sec to a handset.”

“So far, Loon has used the unlicensed 2.4GHz band for its Wi-Fi testing. But, according to FCC filings obtained by PCWorld, Google is testing two types of radio spectrum, along with a broad class signal that could possibly mean it's looking into using 4G LTE for Project Loon.

“Using LTE could mean a faster Wi-Fi experience with less interference. But, it also means Google would have to work harder to get regulatory approval from several countries.

“Google has hoped for absolute secrecy in regards to its alleged new testing in Nevada, according to PCWorld. In its filing to the FCC, Google reportedly asked the government agency to keep the tests under wraps.

“’The technology is under development and highly sensitive and confidential in nature,’ Google wrote, according to PCWorld. Publicizing these tests would ‘jeopardize the value of the technology’ and enable others to ‘utilize Google's information to develop similar products in a similar timeframe.’

“The addition of LTE to the balloons brings several benefits, according to Google. Markets where 4G LTE has launched know it for higher speed mobile broadband, but in Loon it serves a different purpose. It could allow Google to provide an internet signal directly to mobile phones as well as deliver services over longer distances than wi-fi.'

“(The radios used in Google's New Zealand launch operated on unlicensed spectrum in the 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz bands used in wi-fi.)”

“The other benefit of LTE is that carriers are already using it on their networks. ‘This means that when Loon partners with telcos to deliver last-mile connectivity, we will be able to use the telecommunications companies' existing infrastructure, which will allow us to deliver service to rural and remote users seamlessly and quickly,’ Google said.”

NY Times Looks Behind CDCReversal on Cell Phone Risks

Based on More Than 500 Pages of Internal Documents

In August 2014, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued and then rescinded precautionary advice on the use of cell phones. Now, Danny Hakim, an investigative reporter at the New York Times, has published a behind-the-scenes look at what was going at the time, based on 500 pages of CDC internal documents, including e-mails, together with follow-up interviews.

Unfortunately, Hakim leaves a key question unresolved: Why do U.S. officials interpret the available data differently than their counterparts in many other countries?

Let’s be honest. 2015 has been a very trying year on the whole. I can relate to what so many around the world are sensing, like there’s an epic battle of light and dark happening. It’s not just the Star Wars talking. It has been really difficult watching the war of duality in the real world, with real people.

Most of what seemed true and reliable in our world, we’re finding out simply isn’t what we thought. Radiation-pulsing utility meters and “space Wi-Fi” surveillance agendas to blanket the planet and fry the atmosphere…seriously? Our utilities and communication industry have become agents of harm. The science, the symptoms, and our hearts all speak loud and clear that this is the path to the dark side.

Yet on the positive side, while we are faced with an invasion of our rights and corrupt agendas, I’m seeing a rising indignation at the suggestion that this is somehow “the new normal”.

The movie projector of the old power-and-control paradigm is dimming, at an exponential rate. The illusion of it is less solid now on our reality screen. It’s there — it’s just increasingly disconnected fromwhat we sense to be valid and rational. We’re in a time of “whole systems breakdown”, as Marianne Williamson puts it. And we want to write a new story.

The corp-gov-military machine, while losing the information war (admitted back in 2011), is simultaneously lurching for total control. A last desperate attempt?

2016 will be the year of conscious activism.

The time-tested ways of activism — like the old paradigm itself — just aren’t working. There is a growing sense that appealing to the “authorities” is like going to the captain of the pirate ship complaining about the pirates. So it’s not really a surprise that there’s no real remedy available there.

Things change when activism gets intentional and connected. Bless the angry-appealers, the love-n-lighters, and the complacent-churchers — but each of these well-meaning groups have been operating in a bubble which hasn’t yet found the trick to actually changing things here… yet.

The new currency will be love backed by action. Truth backed by commitment.

I haven’t been writing much lately during this current phase of development, but I was really inspired by these insights that others recently shared with me. I hope you enjoy and are encouraged.

From Dafna Tachover in Israel:

Hi All,

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to ALL my friends.

“If you bring forth what is inside you,What you bring forth will save you.If you don’t bring forth what is inside you,What you don’t bring forth will destroy you.”

Although I’m not Christian, these words by Jesus of Nazareth, have been my inspiration and I think of them often, especially at times when I feel that there is no stop to the wireless tsunami. These words remind me that win or lose I have to bring forth whatever it is in me to do what I think is right. These words are true to every one of us who learned all too well about the not so generous nature of humans.

Our chance of adding light into a world with much darkness is dependent on each and every one of us doing their best with the talents they have, to make this world a better place. To make people understand that religion is supposed to bring tolerance and kindness not war, hate and death and to dissolve the power of money, a force that creates more destruction than the good it brings.

Until we truly realize our full potential and effect, both individually and collectively, we can easily live in a state of semi-conscious discouragement and disempowerment when it needn’t be that way.

Our warfare is primarily spiritual. Yet spirituality manifests in many ways, and much of it is informational. This in turn leads to more conscious awareness and much more conscious action, as well as fundamental non-compliance with the influences of today’s imposed spiritual and societal constructs…

We realize we each change the very fabric of this morphic field that results in this experience we call “reality”. Our effect is enormous, knowing the connected fabric that underlies all of creation is ours to affect for the better.

To grasp that empowerment and respond is to change everything, ourselves first and then all that is around us.

Find that place. Anything short of it is next to futile. Yank the morphic rug a good one and as often as you can. It sends them [the corp-gov-military complex] reeling and signals others to do the same.

They can’t operate on a playing field managed by loving, conscious awareness. Their plans will only continue to quake and crumble. They know this and are afraid of us. That is the truth.

On behalf of the team at Take Back Your Power, we wish you the peace that passes all understanding in 2016.

We are still here. And we are coming together.

-Josh del Sol

About the Author

Josh del Sol is the director and producer of Take Back Your Power, a revelatory documentary feature film uncovering the worldwide ‘smart’ metering and grid agenda. Watch the film and subscribe to updates atwww.takebackyourpower.net, and follow him via twitter @TBYPfilm.

New York Times’ Exposé: CDC’s Retraction of Warnings about Cell Phone Radiation

Electromagnetic Radiation Safety, January 1, 2016

Today The New York Times published an exposé about the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) retraction of warnings about cell phone radiation.

In June 2014, the CDC issued a public warning about the potential health risks from cell phone radiation, “We recommend caution in cellphone use.” The warning included a statement regarding the potential risks to children from cell phone use. Ten weeks later, the CDC withdrew the warning.

The Times obtained more than 500 pages of CDC internal records which revealed considerable disagreement among scientists and other health agencies about what to tell the public.

Even though the CDC had spent three years creating the new warning, the agency was unprepared for the publicity it received. For example, a public official from Vermont raised the potential liabilities for schools and libraries that allow use of cellphones and wireless technology.

Electromagnetic Radiation Safety and Microwave News originally reported on this controversy in August, 2014.

STOP's ongoing review of the Navy's recently released Northwest Training and Testing Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) has identified what we believe are a number of significant violations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

In our last update, we discussed how other government agencies have criticized the Navy's analysis of the noise impacts of the aircraft using the proposed Pacific Northwest Electronic Warfare Range.

In this update we discuss another gross deficiency - the complete failure to analyze the impacts of the electromagnetic radiation that would be emitted by the electronic warfare weapons with which the aircraft using the proposed EWR will be equipped.

Section 2.3 of the FEIS has an extensive listing and description of sonar systems, ordnance, munitions, targets, and other systems to "facilitate understanding of both the activities and the analysis of the environmental effects of their use." The potential environmental impacts of those systems are then analyzed in Section 3 of the FEIS.

However, no such listing or description is included in the FEIS for the electronic attack weapons with which the EA-18G Growlers are fitted. This is especially ironic because the whole purpose of the EWR is to provide testing and training in the operation of those systems.

Instead, without limiting or describing in any way just what electronic attack weapons will be used, Section 3.0.5.3.2.1 of the FEIS dismisses any consideration of their impacts by claiming that "these systems will be operated at power levels, altitudes, and distances from people and animals to ensure that energy received is well below levels that could disrupt behavior or cause injury."

Just as with the Navy's more conventional weapon systems, however, a listing of the types of electronic attack weapons and their specifications, and the "power levels, altitudes, and distances from people and animals at which the weapons will be used," is needed to "facilitate understanding of both the activities and the analysis of the environmental effects of their use."

A recent article in the online publication Defense Systems noted the Navy" is upgrading its electronic attack aircraft, the EA-18G Growler" and described the Growler as "an advanced airborne electronic attack platform, with electronic warfare capabilities" including "non-traditional electronic attack" weapons.

According to its Environmental Assessment, the EWR is intended to "sustain and enhance the level and type of EW training currently being conducted by assets using the [Northwest Training Range Complex], to provide the ability to accommodate growth in future training requirements, and to maximize the ability of local units to achieve their training requirements on local ranges." It is also intended to provide "combat-ready Tactical Electronic Attack squadrons which are fully trained." This degree of training would require the use of "non-traditional electronic attack" weapons within the EWR.

A United States Army document entitled "Bioeffects of Selected Nonlethal Weapons" released in 2006 discussed electronic warfare weapons that could induce sounds in human subjects, trigger epileptic seizures, and induce blinding. In 2013, the Air Force awarded General Dynamics a $49,000,000 contract to conduct bio-effects research on directed energy weapon effectiveness and safety, directed energy bio-mechanisms, radio frequency bio-effects modeling and simulation, and human effectiveness analysis andintegration. This 2013 contract indicates that the development of the selected nonlethal weapons mentioned in the 2006 document is very much being pursued by the Department of Defense. These types of weapons would seemingly qualify as "non-traditional electronic attack weapons."

Before any rational analysis of the effects of the EWR can be made, it is essential that the specifications of all the electronic attack weapons to be used in the EWR, including "non-traditional electronic attack" weapons, be known. This is especially so with non-traditional electronic attack weapons being a part of the Growler's arsenal, and with those weapons apparently being designed to harm people.

We invite all of you to share your knowledge and concerns regarding electronic attack weapons with us and the public so that this aspect of the EWR might receive the proper attention. We invite the Navy to recognize the deficiencies in its NEPA documents, and to start anew by drafting a scoping document to begin the proper analysis of the environmental impacts of the EWR.

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About Me

While I have always been extremely health conscious and am presently in excellent health, I did become temporarily out-of-commission (i.e. I was really sick) in 2005 with a number of at the time unexplainable symptoms. I was quite puzzled at the time because I had been eating mainly organically grown food, drinking spring water, doing Yoga every morning, and going to the gym several times a week. In other words, I was doing everything one is supposed to do to stay healthy. I was not supposed to get sick. It took me six months before discovering or even imagining the main source of the problem - which was in fact "overexposure to electromagnetic" - especially microwave - radiation. I was living within 200 meters of two cell phone towers at the time and within 500 meters of a 3rd one with numerous WiFi signals bleeding into my apartment from adjacent neighbors. I developed a host of symptoms, which are found in what has been misleadingly described as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) -- but much more accurately described as Radio Wave or Microwave Sickness. Large numbers of people in the USA suddenly started getting sick in 1984...